The Lampasas County Commissioners Court voted last week to delegate part-time code enforcement responsibility to the county’s animal control officer and to pay the employee a stipend for the additional work.

Violations of subdivision regulations, as well as complaints about salvage yards and junkyards, are increasing faster than county officials can address them with current staff levels, Precinct 1 Commissioner Robert Vincent said in supporting the decision to assign part-time code enforcement duties.

Until recently, Constable Gordon Nelson had been handling code enforcement part time, Sheriff David Whitis said. Nelson’s regular duties, however, leave little time for code enforcement, the sheriff added.

The animal control officer will be well suited to respond to code violations, Whitis said, because his regular duties take him all across the county. If the amount of work proves too great to handle in addition to animal control responsibilities, Whitis said commissioners can consider creating a full-time code enforcement position.

The animal control officer will be certified to enforce all health and safety codes, but he will not have authority over septic systems, as the county already has a septic inspector.

Some violations — such as the placement of mailboxes in subdivisions or the raising of prohibited animals in residential areas — Whitis and County Judge Wayne Boultinghouse noted, are civil matters that fall outside a criminal code enforcement officer’s purview.

When he observes or receives reports of violations, the code enforcement officer will meet with landowners and/or send certified letters warning property owners to correct violations, Whitis said.

“I don’t really envision somebody riding around and giving tickets to everybody,” the sheriff said. “I think we need to work with the landowners to help them clean up these things.”

Whitis also encouraged commissioners in the upcoming budget year to increase salaries for county deputies — particularly the animal control officer, who the sheriff said has been especially busy. Pay increases, Whitis said, will help Lampasas County avoid losing employees to higher-paying law enforcement agencies in nearby counties.

In another code-related matter, the Commissioners Court took no action on a request by residents of County Road 3270 to reconsider a salvage yard permit issued to Charles Drayton. Some of Drayton’s neighbors had expressed concern about old refrigerators stored at Drayton’s property and about chemicals from salvaged vehicles leaking into the Lampasas River.

County Attorney Larry Allison is reviewing Drayton’s permit, but Precinct 2 Commissioner Alex Wittenburg, who recently visited Drayton’s property with Vincent, said the salvage yard owner appeared to be abiding by the fencing requirements of his permit.

“From what I could see, it looked like everything was within the boundaries of the original permit,” Wittenburg said.

Drayton said his 0.56-acre salvage yard, which is fenced, soon will be surrounded by a privacy fence to screen vehicles from neighbors. The property owner also said refrigerators have “been gone for months” from his property and that his son, an air-conditioning technician, safely removed the freon from the appliances.

Boultinghouse said he had been most concerned about the refrigerators, and he thanked Drayton for trying to follow the county’s salvage yard regulations.

“You seem to be doing better than a lot of places I’ve seen around the county where it’s kind of scary even to look,” the judge said.

Also at the meeting, commissioners voted to allow Lampasas Midstream to install natural gas pipeline crossings on County Roads 3210, 3220, 3270 and 3300.

Although commissioners during the recent meeting approved a countywide burn ban, the ban has been lifted until July 16 at 6 p.m. because of recent rains.

In other business, commissioners approved a quarterly report from Lampasas County Child Protective Services Board President Jacque Pickard. The county CPS has 36 children — including eight babies younger than one year — in foster care, Mrs. Pickard noted.

“We’re going through lots of diapers right now — and formula,” she said.

In addition, six families with a total of 14 children are receiving counseling through the Family-Based Social Services program, Mrs. Pickard said.

The CPS board president, whose term ends Dec. 31, said she hopes to tweak the board’s 20-year-old bylaws to ease the transition for her successor.